The Best Moments from Kelly Thompson's 'Captain Marvel' Run

Carol Danvers’ life has always been a hectic and high-flying adventure, but writer Kelly Thompson took the Captain on one wild ride—pushing her even higher, further, and faster than ever before. From her time hiding out in a living pocket dimension to her sentence as a monster hunter, here are some of the best moments from Thompson’s turn writing Earth’s Mightiest Hero, which will come to an epic conclusion in CAPTAIN MARVEL (2019) #50.

Captain Marvel vs. Rogue

In CAPTAIN MARVEL (2019) #4 by Thompson, Carmen Carnero, Tamra Bonvillain, and VC's Clayton Cowles, Mahkizmo revealed that he lured Carol to Roosevelt Island to make her his bride. However, Carol had to “prove” she was capable of bearing him powerful children—insert cringe here—by overcoming what he saw as her greatest weakness: the power-stealing X-Man Rogue. In a colosseum duel to the death, Nuclear Man set a mind-controlled Rogue against the Captain.

What Mahkizmo didn’t count on, however, was Rogue managing to reach out to Captain Marvel despite the mind control. While Rogue initially wanted Carol to kill her, the Captain came up with a better plan: letting Rogue fully absorb her and make her the dominant personality and power in Rogue’s body—which freed the mutant from Mahkizmo’s mind control and both of them from a desperate situation. While Rogue and Carol are far from friends, this battle showed they’re also more than capable of using the lessons learned from their shared traumatic experience to move forward together.

Captain Marvel vs. the Mystic Arts

After the sorcerer Ove, son of Namor and the Enchantress, escaped to the present day at the end of "The New World" arc, Carol feared her weakness to magic would lead to the apocalyptic future Ove created. She decided that “learning magic” would cover that weakness, but she quickly found that cramming decades of study and practice into a few days was basically impossible—especially when every single one of her magical friends refused to teach her, since someone as mighty as her might actually need weaknesses. Quite a thing to hear after going through the trouble of getting a more wizardy outfit!

Desperate, Carol turned to an enemy instead: the Enchantress herself, setting her against her future son in a surprisingly cruel double-cross. Rather than teach Carol mystic arts, Amora sent her after a forbidden anti-magic relic to make a potion that could permanently depower any magician. 

In a climatic battle with Ove in CAPTAIN MARVEL (2019) #30 by Thompson, Jacopo Camagni, Espen Grundetjern, and VC's Clayton Cowles, the Enchantress realized he was her son. After the potion worked, Carol discovered that not only had Amora been completely honest and helpful towards her, but that she had made an enemy of the entire magical community by depowering one of their own.

The Trial of Captain Marvel

Though Carol never actually intended for Ove to drink the depowering potion—he drank it on his own, thinking it was something else—the mystic community still held her responsible. For her crimes, Amora the Enchantress brought a case against Carol to a Magic Tribunal headed by Agatha Harkness, Doctor VooDoo, Magik, Satana, and a recurring foe of Carol’s: Alriac, King of the Snat (that’s snake and cat) Men. Even though Scarlet Witch represented her, Carol’s guilt and punishment had already been decided; the trial was to determine whether she was worthy to continue as a hero. 

Like anything involving magic, the trial wasn’t exactly straightforward. The Tribunal erased Carol’s memories and trapped her in a magical simulation. There, she was a monster hunter, reliving the same day, getting the same mission, and slaying the same dragon over and over again. The test was to see whether she, the notoriously “shoot first” Captain Marvel, would ever decide against killing the dragon. 

While she was at least on the verge of a new path in the simulation, thanks to some shenanigans on the part of Wanda and Amora, Carol instead wound up yielding to a dragon in real life. Finally proving that she, a mighty hammer, could at least consider problems as more than just nails, the Magic Tribunal marked Carol for time served.

Carol Danvers: The All-Avenger

Starting in CAPTAIN MARVEL (2019) #12 by Thompson, Lee Garbett, Tamra Bonvillain, and VC's Clayton Cowles, Vox Supreme set their eyes on kidnapping the Avengers, planning to use their bodies and DNA as raw material for a new “master race.” But, rather than gather Earth’s Mightiest Heroes themselves, this Super-Inhuman/Kree Supreme Intelligence fusion instead blackmailed Captain Marvel into doing the dirty work by threatening to detonate bombs they placed inside Kree children living in alien refugee camps. 

Vox Supreme monitored every sound Carol made via a special black suit they created for her, meaning that not only could her teammates not recognize her, but she couldn’t explain anything to them without risking innocent lives. Fortunately, Carol figured out a workaround, delivering braindead clones to Vox Supreme while she hid her real teammates away inside the living pocket dimension Singularity. Not so fortunately, Vox Supreme eventually figured her out. 

In the ensuing fight, Carol crashed into a container of green ooze that carried the essences of the other Avengers. While she entered the fight with Captain America’s shield, the green goo gave Carol the body of a Hulk, the ability to call and use Mjolnir like Thor… and Tony Stark’s head growing out of her shoulder. Not an elegant transformation, but it got the job done! Vox Supreme was then thoroughly trounced and delivered to the Raft in a metal coffin.

The (Re)Birth of Binary

Vox Supreme eventually escaped prison and made their way to a planet dubbed New Hala, where the body of Mar-Vell rested along with traces of the Phoenix Force. In an effort to free her friends and fellow “Marvels”—who had all been caught in black suits of their own—Carol followed them to the newly lush planet. 

There, Vox Supreme returned the Captain’s favor from earlier, trapping her in a power-proof metal coffin and hurling it into orbit. To escape, Carol took a page out of Monica Rambeau’s playbook by making an energy duplicate of herself to blast away the coffin from the outside. This duplicate eventually gained sentience thanks to the cosmic energies of New Hala and later revealed her name to be Binary—a fitting name for a being that so closely resembled Carol’s old identity.

Essentially a newborn, Binary was naturally curious and excited about everything she didn’t know. She quickly became like a little sister to Carol and company as they taught her the ABCs of life. However, with her resemblance to Carol and her origin as a duplicate, Binary eventually became unsure of who she truly was and what her place in the world should be. To find out, she said her goodbyes and set out for space, aiming to learn everything about life that couldn’t be taught.

Mighty Marvel Power-Up

Sometime after Binary left Earth, Carol received a harrowing distress call from her, transmitted from the depths of space. Having received a similar call from Rogue, Captain Marvel and the X-Men set out to find out what happened to the pair. Together, they discovered the two heroes had been imprisoned by the parasitic Brood and set up as bait to lure Carol back into their clutches. 

Knowing it was a trap, Carol still traded places with Binary, betting that her team would find a way to get her out eventually. Unfortunately, while she was being tortured, the group was attacked by a massive wave of Brood in a brutal fight that resulted in Binary’s death.

Despite this, Binary was somehow able to reach out to Carol inside the torture device and encourage her to find her way out—but her pep talk did much more than that. Devastated and infuriated by Binary’s death, Captain Marvel unlocked a new level of power, one that gave her the energy of a small—but growing—star. 

Drawing as much energy as she could towards her, Carol intended to vaporize the Brood’s planet. However, in her rage, she wasn’t willing or able to control all that power and risked collapsing into a black hole that would destroy everything, not just the Brood. In the end, Rogue talked her down and consensually siphoned off some of Carol’s power, bringing the two of them to a better place in their relationship and allowing Carol a healthier way to cope: by burying Binary where she was born, on New Hala.

Don't miss the conclusion to Kelly Thompson's epic Carol Danvers story in CAPTAIN MARVEL #50, on sale June 7!

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